March 22, 2013

Sometimes it feels like we’re all shouting the same things at each other. Do you ever notice that? I mean, on social media we tend to follow like minded people. When something terrible happens, we’re all yelling our outrage. Agreeing and yelling and outraged.

And then, if we’re an author, we want to talk about our books and our accomplishments. If we’re agents or editors we want to offer helpful advice or tell people what not to do. If we’re a company we want to sell a product.

And then, if we’re a person of any kind, we want to vent our frustrations, laud our accomplishment, show off pictures of our kids/pets/lunch etc.

We’re all talking, but we aren’t always listening. Sometimes I spend so much time on social media it starts to feel like noise. This agent says do this while this editor yells to NEVER do that. One author you admire sells a billion books, and so does one author who’s writing you just can’t get into and you wonder…why?

You try to engage with someone who doesn’t want to engage with you. Someone who you don’t want to engage with approaches you.

You speak, and no one responds.

It’s all…noise. And mainly we’re not so much listening to each other as we are yelling louder and louder to make our voice heard.

And then, sometimes you are heard. And you feel like someone out there shares an experience with you and it soothes the savage beast or the crows of doubt or something for a little while.

Sometimes social media has the power to make us feel better, ease our hurts, share our joys, point us in the right direction.

Sometimes it is just a cacophony of discordant sound that pushes us further into our shell, further away from our dreams.

As a person, I’m struggling to navigate it all without it affecting my self worth. As an author with a recent release, I’m trying to do all the right things to make my book seem like something you’d like to read.

But as the characters in my WIP are currently figuring out about their own lives, maybe there is no right way. There is only doing the best you can do at any given moment, right or wrong. And, just like social media, sometimes that is a relief, and sometimes it is a terrible burden.